10 Weirdest Laws In The Star Trek Universe
Which rules simply don't make sense in Star Trek?
The Starfleet Charter and Federation Articles all make for a lovely set of documents to enjoy over a cup of tea, outlining how the drafters would like the officers and representatives under them to act in a given situation.
However, the sad truth of the matter is that many of them don't translate well when put into practice.
There is a law that allows the captain of a starship to sterilise a planet. Yes, that actually exists. Boom and all life is gone. Let's not forget the law that allowed Section 31 to effectively create the SS in space. The list goes on.
Speaking of lists, this one is restricted to Starfleet and Federation laws as, frankly, there are enough questionable choices in the drafting of each that demand exploration and rewriting. The Death Penalty for visiting Talos IV, which is the only applicable crime left, seems to depend on the mood and the hour.
Ships self-destructing when the crews are dead might not apply if it's a Wednesday as opposed to a Friday. And let's not even begin to address General Order 1 itself. Or, maybe we will!
10. General Order 24
This is the order to destroy all life on an entire planet. It has been issued twice, once by Captain Garth and once by Captain Kirk.
Though the law wasn't enacted on either occasion, as Garth's crew mutinied and Kirk stood down, one has to marvel at the situation that led to its creation in the first place. The intentional sterilisation of a world is antithetical to Starfleet's motto of 'seeking out new life and new civilisations'. The closest that an officer has come to actually enact this law occurred in 2376.
Captain Benjamin Sisko hunted the traitor Michael Eddington through the badlands. Eddington poisoned the atmosphere of a Cardassian colony, forcing them to evacuate. In retaliation and in a bid to encourage Eddington to surrender himself, Sisko ordered the release of two trilithium devices into the upper atmosphere of a Maquis colony.
While no one actually died as a result of this, the world became a barren wasteland for years following. Eddington, horrified at how far Sisko was willing to go, gave in. To date, no sanctioned enacting of this law has taken place.